Alone Girl Alone

When I am walking in the streetit’s like walking in a dark jungle and knowing wolves are at the ready.I can feel them looking at me with red eyesand searching for a moment.

When I am sleeping, I am waiting for someone to come and shoot meand with the start of each day I am more alone than before.I am an alone girlstanding among all these wild peopletrying to be strong and help them.

They are not wild because they want to be but because they learned to be.They learned to be crueland see an alone girl as a bad girl.They learned to know her as a danger to their families and daughters,they learned to see her as someone who sells herself,they learned to throw her away,they learned to annoy her, to break her, to leave her and to hate her.They never thought she is human.Only and only because she is a girl and her fault is to be alone.She did not want to be alone;she did not choose this life and she does not like itand if she is alone that does not mean she is a bad girl,it does not mean she doesn’t have the right to leave,or that she can’t be a part of this society.

Sometimes I am tired of being an alone girl,I am tired of people looking at me as a bad girl.I am tired of hearing the bad wordsthey enjoy when they can’t touch me.I am tired of them making fun of me so that I don’t go out again—I am tired of them looking at my bodyand separating me from other people with their eyesI wish when they see me they would give me a small smile—but I will never accept their hateand I will never quietly listen to themand I will never let them to break meand I will never be silent.

6 Comments

Lyndee
on May 8, 2013 at 8:31 pm

This poem says a lot of things. It highlights on some of the problems that women face today. Sometimes they may feel like they don’t fit in or they are being stared at in a mean way. As I read this I thought about many girls I knew who went through problems in life, and even myself. Nobody is perfect. I really enjoyed the end of this poem because it shows that no matter what anybody says or thinks, she is going to stand strong and she will stick up for what she believes.

Stunning and heartfelt. I feel for the Afghani women who suffer these injustices day by day. I am so lucky to be an Australian and live in the freedom I have. Thank you Masooma for sharing your poetry with the world, my thoughts are with you…

Dearest Masooma: This poem floors me. I read each line, I imagine each image, and it’s like another arrow to my heart. You write so eloquently. Why should a girl, a woman, not be allowed to be alone? Why must she be harassed, hurt, or worse, because she wants to grow into her full self, because she wants to be her own master? Brava, Masooma, for telling your stories, for sharing your poems.

“Separating me from other people with their eyes” – wow.
There are so many quotable lines. I guess I am guilty here of separating lines out from the whole poem. But only because they are so stunning. The writing is so affecting. Stacy

Masooma, your poem is beautiful, your images fearful and haunting. I appreciate the strength and defiance with which you conclude, even in the face of your fatigue (“I’m tired…”). One aspect of your poem that makes it universal (I write from California, in the United States) is the human sense that we all get tired of the challenges we face – I think your readers connect with that feeling of danger to themselves for being themselves. Although our lives here may not be as dangerous as yours, you seem to have addressed a very real dimension we all have: we are all alone in key moments of our life’s journey – it’s scary and overwhelming – and yet we each seem to find a way to defy that sense of impending defeat and find the strength to go forward. Thank you for this beautiful poem.